Matthias Binder was a preacher of the Hutterian Brethren in Moravia, ordained 9 January 1569, and sent out as a missionary with Paul Pretten (Prele) to Württemberg, his former home. His field was the region of Frickenhausen. On 15 April 1573 he was captured at Neuffen (today under the Oberamt Nürtingen). In Stuttgart and later in Maulbronn the clergy and the magistrates subjected him to repeated trials on the rack. Since all attempts to persuade him to abandon his faith were futile, he was imprisoned in the Hohenwittlingen castle near Urach, where another Hutterite, Paul Glock, had already been languishing for 17 years. In a fire which broke out in 1576 and burned the castle, they zealously assisted in extinguishing the flames when the prison doors were opened; this so impressed the manager of the prison that he released them. Early in January 1577 they reached the church in Moravia. Binder died 21 September 1593, at Altenmarkt (Beck, Geschichts-Bücher, 253, 264, 319).

Binder, like his fellow prisoner Glock, wrote some poems. He was the author of three hymns: "So wollen wir jetzt heben an," 12 stanzas; "Mein Gott in deinem höchsten Thron," 13 stanzas; and "Wie lieblich ist geziert," 22 stanzas. The hymn, "Merk auf, du wahre Christgemein" (46 stanzas, of which stanzas 1-34 form an acrostic on the names of Matthias Binder, Paul Glock, Veit Urmacher), describes Binder’s three-year imprisonment in Württemberg (reprinted in Die Lieder der Hutterischen Brüder). Four of his letters are also extant, dated Neuffen 1574, Maulbronn 1574 and 1575, and Wittlingen 1576, addressed to Peter Walpot and the church in Moravia, which described his experiences.

Braght, Thieleman J. van. The Bloody Theatre or Martyrs' Mirror of the Defenseless Christians Who Baptized Only upon Confession of Faith and Who Suffered and Died for the Testimony of Jesus Their Saviour . . . to the Year A.D. 1660. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1951: 1026. Available online at: http://www.homecomers.org/mirror/index.htm.